Recently, Alabama's Attorney General released an opinion (see http://www.ago.alabama.gov/pdfopinions/2009-092.pdf) in which he concluded that an Alabama municipality could not exempt food from the local sales tax, even if it wanted to do so, since the state did not exempt food from the state level tax.
This is an important conclusion, not only because it sidetracks, at least temporarily, the substantial efforts of the those attempting to lessen the impact of Alabama's tax system on those least able to pay those taxes by exempting goods that all people need for survival, such as food. However, the opinion also has much broader implications.
In particular, this opinion confirms that local jurisdications must follow state law on sales and use tax issues, even if the local jurisdiction wishes to do otherwise. This has been argued for years by local jurisdictions, even though it was essentially put to rest by the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals' decision in Yelverton's in 1997.
What do you think about local jurisdictions attempting to exempt food from sales tax if the state won't do so? Do you have any concern that if allowed to take a position different from the state on this issue that local jurisdictions will attempt to do so on other issues?
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